Montevideo, Uruguay

Montevideo is a lovely, small city with a rich history. Like BAs, the citizens of Montevideo have an Italian/Spanish heritage with strong French influences in the architecture.

Michelle and Gabriel from Tours by Locals gave us an overview of the city which included Plaza Constitucion, Plaza Independencia, the seashore, Teatro Solis, the cathedral and the parliament buildings.

A brief history, a la Christine.... Montevideo (View of the Mountains) was originally settled in 1794 by the Spanish who established a fort where Plaza Constitucion is now. Jockeying for control between Spain, Portugal and France began immediately as Montevideo has a much better port area than BAs. The only remaining piece of the fort walls is in Plaza Independencia where the original gate still stands. The remaining walls were destroyed to allow the city to expand. Currently 1/3 of Uruguay’s population lives in Montevideo.

But things really got interesting when Artegas showed up. He was a shady character who was given a captaincy in the Spanish Army on condition that he go to Uruguay to defend Spanish interests. Sometime after arriving, he reverted to his past, turned on the Spanish and led the rebellion for independence. Although they describe him as the George Washington of Uruguay, he got tired of the rebellion and moved to Paraguay to farm, never returning. Eventually, through the diplomacy of Lord Ponceberry (I might have this name wrong), Spain, Britain and France got together to decide the fate of Uruguay, and declared it an independent nation, without any input from the citizens of Uruguay.

Uruguay is a small country which currently has more cows than people, 450 kinds of birds, an infrastructure built by the British, a legal system modelled on the French, mandatory voting laws, and the first opera house (Teatro Solis) built in S. American. An interesting country!

Both BAs and Montevideo impressed us with their commitment to promoting healthy living. In both countries, there is no salt on restaurant tables, and in Montevideo, one sees exercise stations in the public parks. We exercised on the dance floor till after 11 pm.

We sailed away around six and now have 2 sea days so we will probably not do another post until The Falkland Islands.Read more